Some Unitary Representations of R. Thompson’s Groups F and T

Vaughan Jones
Vanderbilt University
Stevenson Distinguished Professor
Fields Medal Recipient

“Thompson’s groups are groups of piecewise linear homeomorphisms of the  interval and circle where all the non-smooth points are dyadic rationals and all the slopes are powers of 2. By thinking of the group as local scaling transformations of a quantum chain one obtains unitary representations. The matrix entries of these unitaries can be interesting and lead to a construction of all knots and links analogous to the well known construction via closed braids”.

Light refreshments will be served @ 12:30PM EMS E424A.